Sweet Hereafter: A Novel by Russell Banks
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Book Reviews of Sweet Hereafter: A Novel
Book Review: Wonderful Masterpiece
Summary: 5 Stars
I read this book a month ago, and have since read three other books, but this one still resonates with me. Every time I drive down a snowy Connecticut street, I think of Dolores and her bus full of kids. This work is brilliant. It's narrated from four points of view, each one utterly engrossing. I haven't seen the movie and have no interest in doing so. Russell Banks brings us to so many moral questions, so many human emotions, so many lives, that I feel enriched, saddened, and even transformed by his art. How could the movie match that? The overall theme of this work is loss and transformation, within a sparkling narrative of a terrible event. Read it.Book Review: Won't Let You Down!
Summary: 5 Stars
After a bus accident kills several children in a small town, everyone needs someone to blame. Russell Banks tells this story well by focussing on only a few characters and letting us get into their heads by way of switching narrators, among whom are parents of the dead children, a teenager who survived the accident, the bus driver, and a lawyer in town to get rich off of the accident. Banks is unwavering in his portrayal of immense grief and you feel by the end as though you personally know the characters. I read this only after seeing the movie and was not disappointedBook Review: Brilliant!
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is amazing. Its narrative, presented from four utterly engrossing points of view, turns on an awful event, a fatal school bus crash in a small Adirondack town. Every time I drive down a snowy Connecticut street, I think of Dolores, the bus driver, and her bus full of kids. Russell Banks gives us, with his sparkling narration, a brilliant array of moral questions and human emotions. After reading this book I felt enriched, saddened, and thrilled by his art. The overall themes of this work are terrible loss and riveting transformation. Read it.
Book Review: The Sweet Hereafter
Summary: 5 Stars
This book really sparked my interest. I was amazed at the ease in which Banks portrayed four different characters, each of a different age and extreme personality. Small town life was precisely described down to the different sections(geographicallly and socially) and the many different relationships bettweeen citizens. The tragic event that occurs might have happened to anyone in any town, but with the hidden secrets of Sam dent it becomes unique. The real life approach allows you to become involved and I wonder what secrets I would find in my own small town.Book Review: An author who knows people better than they know themselves
Summary: 5 Stars
Russell Banks weaves the people around the story, and though he is doing the storytelling, he lets us do what we will with the characters. Much of his writing is painful, and he makes it even more so by doing it with a conscious hand. "The Sweet Hereafter" is nothing short of a masterpiece, a novel that's as clear as a curved piece of glass and makes you wonder why and how the visions are distorted by its curvature. He's an author who knows people a lot better than the people themselves. "The Sweet Hereafter" is such a book.